First Life Form

[Zinjanthropos]

I would think the first abiogenic life form on Earth would not possess all of the 5 senses. For one thing I can’t see how vision and hearing would be on the short list. Smell I also doubt but before sight and sound sensing made an appearance. Perhaps the most primitive taste and touch was available, thinking chemical trails and just bumping into one another. Yet to survive they had to be adapted enough to the environment et al.

Is it possible to be alive and not sense anything? Can you be conscious or aware without a sense? If this was the case for the first life form then how quick would the first sense evolve? Seems crazy to think of something alive, adapted and surviving without a sense but was that what occurred? At least we can install sensing devices on AI and in a way it has evolved from us which could be what’s supposed to happen

[C C]

[...] Is it possible to be alive and not sense anything? Can you be conscious or aware without a sense? If this was the case for the first life form then how quick would the first sense evolve? Seems crazy to think of something alive, adapted and surviving without a sense but was that what occurred? At least we can install sensing devices on AI and in a way it has evolved from us which could be what’s supposed to happen

Seems applicable to the pre-cell RNA world.

Whereas the earliest chemotons might have had something akin to mechanical switches that were triggered by the presence of certain environmental chemicals. That's far removed from any sense associated with a nervous system, though. No different in principle from a land mine detecting someone stepping on it.

If the universe were actually twice as old as currently thought (or prior to JWST), that would improve the chances of panspermia. If the earliest life on Earth came from elsewhere, then it could have already been advanced enough to have bacterial-like senses.

If JWST data were to eventually overturn even Big Bang Theory or its successor of inflation, so that the cosmos has been around in some sense forever... Then there were certainly earlier civilizations that produced technological singularities that became the equivalent of gods (archailects). Accordingly, they could have been manipulating affairs in the universe for a sub-infinite amount of time[1] -- including seeding and shepherding experimental planets. Again, given the exponential increase in rogue possibilities instantiated by an eternal universe, it would be baffling if not even so much as a minority group of natural deities were engaging in such activities.

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[i] Including figuring out how to survive Big Crunch cycles or how to interfere and maintain a steady-state universe.

[Zinjanthropos]

CC…

If the earliest life on Earth came from elsewhere, then it could have already been advanced enough to have bacterial-like senses.

Sense would be a life form creation then. I mean sense didn’t precede life. Although I guess one could argue that without matter, no senses possible. Does inanimate matter evolve? Seems weird that senseless matter could evolve into a living thing. Just trying to nudge those who think universe is alive.

[C C]

CC…

If the earliest life on Earth came from elsewhere, then it could have already been advanced enough to have bacterial-like senses.

Sense would be a life form creation then. I mean sense didn’t precede life. Although I guess one could argue that without matter, no senses possible. Does inanimate matter evolve? Seems weird that senseless matter could evolve into a living thing. Just trying to nudge those who think universe is alive.

Well, in a finicky respect most subatomic particles do "detect" each other, as construed from their attractions and repulsions. Whereas "ghost particles" like neutrinos usually pass through vast regions of matter as if the latter weren't there.

Via those elemental "woops, guess something is the way" particle reactions, one can see how complex sensory apparatus as well as everything else eventually arises at a higher scale. And the degree of predictability (like two electrons repelling each other) perhaps even hints at a primitive level of thoughtless identification.

In a "universe is alive" or panpsychism context: If there are any simple manifestations or experiences resulting from those dynamic encounters and their relationships, they'd probably be intrinsic states of the corresponding quantum fields themselves, since the particles are merely excitations in them. But in physics there will never be "phenomenal" effects or secondary qualities attributed to its mentally inert matter concept (aside from the fringe areas some physicists dabble in).

The inconsistency of biological disciplines attributing qualia to brains (organs which are still matter organizations -- still abide in the limitations of matter no matter how complexly arranged) will merely continue to pass overhead as embarrassing dirt swept under the carpet. Addressed by the fairy tales of correct algorithmic processes magically conjuring experiences in some emergent qualitative field that can't be detected, or whatever similarly "utterly inconsistent with the other beliefs of that a scientist typically has" falderal that is dispensed to onlookers.
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